The Market Logics of Contemporary Fiction

Paul Crosthwaite

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108499569
• eBook ISBN: 9781108606691
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In the twenty-first century, leading publishers are under intense pressure from their conglomerate owners and shareholders to generate growth and profits. This book shows how these pressures have transformed the contemporary novel. Paul Crosthwaite argues that recent British and American authors have internalized the market logics of the financial sector and book trade, resulting in the production of works of 'market metafiction' in which authors reflect obsessively on their writing's positioning in the literary marketplace. The Market Logics of Contemporary Fiction reveals the entanglement of fictional narrative and market dynamics to be the central phenomenon of contemporary literary culture. It engages with work by key authors including Iain Sinclair, Don DeLillo, Kathy Acker, Bret Easton Ellis, Chris Kraus, Percival Everett, David Foster Wallace, Colson Whitehead, Anne Billson, Hari Kunzru, Barbara Browning, Teju Cole, Ben Lerner, Tao Lin, Nell Zink, Joshua Cohen, Sheila Heti, and Garth Risk Hallberg.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Neoliberalism, Financialization, and the Contemporary Literary Marketplace
• Part I The Emergence of Market Metafiction
• Part II The Phantasmagorias of Contemporary Finance
• Part III The Market Knows
• Part IV The Moment of Market Metafiction
• Coda: Basic Income, or, Why Barbara Browning's The Gift Is Not a Gift
• Notes
• Index